The Construction of the Heroic Image Through Journalistic Discourse

This work attempts to demonstrate that the social construction of the national hero/heroine as a symbol of courage and resistance generally arises within a period of social, political, and economic crisis. The national hero is a construction that emerges at a moment characterized by a loss of public trust and a lack of action by those in power. The configuration of the heroic image functions as a sociopolitical instrument. This work suggests that there is an intimate relationship between history and the construction of heroic figures. Taking the death of Peruvian activist María Elena Moyano as a concrete example, it demonstrates that journalistic discourse has the capacity to create a heroic image of a figure who is assigned the traditional role that the hero has played in society since Antiquity.